Trapped in Reality
by Vivian Verbose
Summary: Sakura has always felt out of place in California. But when she is convicted of a crime she did not commit, Sakura finds her dreams haunted by a boy who longs to bring her back into his world, even if it means tearing her from reality. SasuSaku
1. Stupid Window

Hey all!

Thanks for all the support on my other story, Always and Forever.

Well, I'm more of a NaruHina fan, but this SasuSaku is dedicated to my friend, Alison, for her Sweet Sixteen present.

I hope you like it girl :D

(She's the one who titled it... with help form our mutual friend, Jennifer :P)

Seeing as I'm not very experienced at writing SasuSaku, let me apologize beforehand if Sakura or Sasuke is OOC, but also remember that Sakura has been trapped in our world since her "birth," so she might just HAVE to be OOC. haha...hah...

Yeah, I'm not getting into psychology and stuff... That's crazy.

So yeah, Alison, I hope you like reading this as much as I've enjoyed writing it:D

Happy birthday!

--K

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­­The other girls said that she had gotten the good cell. It had a window.

Sakura hated it.

She curled up on her side, her back deliberately towards the cursed, barred, reinforced Plexiglas window.

Just outside the fenced-in Southern California Detention Center for Girls, lay a cool, grassy hill. It was too much for her to bear.

She hated this place the most out of all the places that she'd even been in – including all of her foster homes and that one foster house where the dad had beaten her.

She even hated her cell more than she had hated school. The learning part had come easily. Everything else hadn't.

Sakura had tried to bury her head in her books for her 18 years and fly unnoticed under the social radar, but the last year of high school – right before she was old enough to be free and run away – her light red hair didn't escape the school bully's sharp eye.

He had tormented her daily over it. He called her Pinky and told her that Sakura sounded like a whore's name. A Japanese whore's name.

_Cherry blossoms_, she'd always whisper to herself when he and his posse were gone. _Sakura means__cherry blossoms_.

She never knew whether she was telling him or trying to convince herself.

Alexander McGreyson. Even the teachers feared his name. All except one, but the principal didn't count, especially since Alex was his son.

In her own way, Sakura had feared Alex too. She had feared how much she had hated him. It had scared her that one day she might act out on her hate, and then she would show everybody that she wasn't just the big-foreheaded nerd that sat quietly in the back of the classroom. She would show them the power that she sometimes felt lurking inside of her.

She was scared at how excited she had felt unleashing that power on Alex.

In the hard, dark cell, Sakura curled up tighter on her bunk, desperate, desperate to block out the memories.

--x--

A month ago, Sakura was walking through the cafeteria at Aviary High School when a sudden foot snapped out and tried to catch her legs.

With the unexplainable and unnaturally quick reflexes that she had always possessed, she leapt over the leg before her mind could comprehend. From somewhere in the back of her mind, Sakura registered the fact that the foot wore scuffed green Nikes. Only one person she knew wore shoes like that.

She landed on the other side of his leg, lithely like a cat, and couldn't help the unconsciously smug smile that flitted across her lips.

Alex had seen it, she guessed, and had decided to make her pay.

His other foot caught her in the stomach.

She had been carrying an armful of textbooks, and as she fell she managed to dodge two of them, but as she hit the cement floor, she felt the last one – the heaviest – land on her ankle with a dull _smack_.

She cried out and instantly the lunchroom went silent. Everyone was frozen, watching her try to collect her textbooks and her dignity off the hard floor.

Suddenly a harsh guffaw echoed through the room. Alex tipped his head back and laughed again. Cruel and heartless.

Instantly the student body followed his example. Everywhere Sakura turned, her classmates, peers, people she didn't know, they were pointing, laughing, roaring at her embarrassment and shame.

_It's just a little thing. Just walk away_, part of her mind told her as she squashed the urge to cry and flee and scream all at the same time. _Just go before he does anything else to you_.

But she was sick of Alex. Sick of everything. Sick of everyone.

The room seemed to tilt and spin. The laughter got louder, the catcalls deafening.

Sakura felt her stomach and ankle throb in dull, aching pain, knowing fully well that her bruised body and dignity were all _his_ fault.

The room tilted again, and she felt like she was sliding off of it. She nearly cried out, and she squeezed her eyes closed and prayed that the world would stop tilting.

Suddenly something inside of her dissolved. She felt a warm swirling in the pit of her stomach, and a soft rushing graced her ears.

And the laughing suddenly didn't seem as loud. She opened her eyes, slowly.

Everyone was still laughing, pointing, but it was somehow muted.

Alex still sat in front of her, laughing, his head thrown back.

His pale neck looked so vulnerable…

Before she could comprehend what her body was doing, Sakura calmly walked up to him and set her books on his lunch table.

Instantly, everything was quiet. Truly, deadly quiet.

Alex brought his head down and looked at her, eyebrow raised. His glare bored into her eyes, but she simply gazed back calmly.

"You should say you're sorry," Sakura said quietly. In the silence, it seemed to echo around the lunchroom.

Alex sneered. "Get lost Pinky."

His friends sniggered behind him.

Sakura's gaze didn't waver. "You might end up regretting not saying sorry."

"Is that a threat?" Alex's eyes narrowed and his glare hardened. "Hey Ruben–" he turned to his friend "– do I take threats from whores?"

Ruben cracked an ugly grin. He knew the punch line to this joke. "Yeah, but not Japanese whores."

Alex turned back to Sakura and stood up. There was an electric rustling from behind her. Everybody was still watching.

"I'm going to make _you_ regret saying that," said Alex. He towered over her.

Sakura simply looked up at him. "We'll see."

Alex's temper snapped. He wasn't used to being treated like such an insignificant threat. He quickly stepped over the bench he had been sitting on and growled, "Ok, bitch, now you're gunna get it."

Sakura expected to feel fear grip her with icy claws, but she felt fine.

Actually, she felt better than fine. She felt excited.

Alex took a menacing step forward.

Knowing exactly what she was doing without really knowing, Sakura lowered her center of gravity and took a calculated step back. She brought her hands up and found herself going through the motions of putting on gloves – _what the–?_

She quickly let her hands drop. She had no time to think about it.

"Fight!" A sharp call cut through the silent lunchroom.

Suddenly there was a rush of bodies, rolling, tumbling, rushing in waves. They bore down on Sakura, chanting, growling, screaming. From somewhere in the back of her mind, Sakura noticed them creating a circle around her and Alex, fencing them both in.

She put them out of mind. It was only her and Alex that mattered.

He took another step forward, urged on by the crowd. His face distorted into a smile, possibly at the thought of caving her face in and showing her to never mess with him again.

Sakura dropped her right hand to her side and touched her jeans. Her fingers scrabbled for something – wait, what was she doing??

Alex charged her with a roar, fist raised, eyes narrowed.

Sakura side stepped him at the last moment and jumped away, landing lightly on her feet.

Alex whirled around and struck out with a heavy fist.

Sakura ducked and dropped into a crouch. She kicked out suddenly, sweeping his feet out from underneath him.

He dropped like a stone and crashed to the ground with a curse.

Sakura tried to back away automatically, but a lunch table touched her back and she knew that she was cornered.

She glanced behind her. Students stood atop the table, chanting and cheering like frenzied animals.

They roared in unison, and Sakura knew that Alex was up.

Her right hand leapt down to her side automatically. She snatched it back up. She knew that her shuriken pack wasn't there, so why – wait,_shuriken_??

She heard Alex thunder behind her, and Sakura snatched the first thing that she could lay her hands on.

A group of students had been playing cards, and she swiped a handful off the table.

Her fingers moved automatically, sliding a card in each gap between fingers. She whirled around and her wrist flicked automatically. She didn't even have to consciously aim.

Alex didn't know what she had thrown at him, but he dodged on instinct. He cried out, and when he turned back, blood trickled down from a shallow cut on his face.

He looked at Sakura with wide eyes, and then risked a look over his shoulder.

Ruben had held up a disposable paper plate to shield himself from the projectiles. He stared at the plate.

The playing cards had sunk more than halfway through the reinforced Dixie paper and still quivered from the impact.

Alex turned back to Sakura who was almost as surprised as he was. His eyes widened again, then narrowed.

"God – What the _hell_ are you?!"

Sakura glanced at her hands, unsure of how to answer.

That was all the opening that Alex needed.

With a yell, Alex dived in to punch her. Sakura snapped back to reality and ducked with ease. His motions seemed painfully slow to her.

Sakura found herself concentrating something into her hand – a nameless, swirling strength. She punched Alex, and the instant she made contact, she felt herself automatically let all that energy go.

Alex flew back several feet and landed hard on his rear. His hands flew to his eye, and he yelped in pain.

Sakura frowned. Alex should have flown back much farther – wait, what was she thinking? She knocked him back a freaking yard, wasn't that enough?

Alex moaned. The crowd roared. Alex glanced around him. His peers, his friends. He would lose everything if he lost to this whore.

Sakura's knuckles throbbed from the contact. Deep in her thoughts, Sakura didn't notice her fingers coming together. Muscle memory clicked her fingers in place into a familiar position.

Tiger.

Sakura snapped back to reality. Her thoughts scattered. Her fingers were intertwined gracefully in some weird gesture. She quickly dropped her hands to her side. She wished that she could heal her bruised knuckles, but–

Alex cussed and shakily got to his feet. The audience cheered, edging him on. Some jeered.

In response, Alex growled, channeling his anger at the jeerers towards the bitch. Even if she beat him today – which she never would! – he would get her tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that…

Sakura looked up. Alex was standing. But not for long. It was time to finish this.

As if releasing a tightly coiled spring, Sakura leapt forward, closing the short gap between them. Her fist made contact with his forehead before he could cry out–

"What is the meaning of this?!"

Sakura froze. She leapt away from Alex. Red rusted her hand from the cut on his face.

Principal McGreyson stalked into the circled audience. The students slowly slinked away, hiding from his watchful eye.

His gaze fell on Alex. He frowned.

Alex couldn't meet his gaze. He glared at the floor.

McGreyson's eyes fell on Sakura. She couldn't help but tense.

He took in her light red hair. Green eyes. Flip flops and jeans. Blood on her hands. His son's blood.

His eyes narrowed.

He whirled around and barked over his shoulder, "Both of you. My office. Now!"

--x--

In her cell, Sakura fought off sleep. Her dreams, her nightmares, haunted her thoughts always. They always seemed so real.

She knew – somehow, somewhere deep inside of her, she knew – that they were the reason why she had snapped that day in the cafeteria. Her dreams were the link to something… Something else – somewhere else.

Somewhere where she belonged.

But the dreams dragged her away from reality, and now she was losing control of her world. The dreams were her curse.

And the boy.

He haunted her day and night. Every minute of her existence.

He was the reason why she was in jail.

In her stupid windowed cell.


	2. First Dream

Hello faithful readers!

Thanks for clicking the NEXT button… I feel honored ;D

Disclaimer: I don't own it. Yeah.

Dedicated to Alison.

--K

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A figure wavered in the distance. Mist or smoke clouded her vision. She tried to peer through it without much result.

"Hey! You!" Sakura called out. "Do you know where I am?"

The figure turned slowly. It stopped to face her. Its features were in shadow.

"Yeah, you! Can you tell me where I am?" Sakura yelled across the great misty distance.

The figure stood still.

"I'm dreaming."  
Sakura glanced around her. The voice had come from close, but it hadn't been her voice. It had been deeper, stronger, but it was also forlorn and sorrowful.

She turned back. It was the figure that had spoken.

"Dreaming?" Sakura found herself taking a step forward. She realized what she was doing and almost snatched her foot back.

But she felt drawn to the voice. She couldn't help it.

It was… strangely familiar…

"This is a dream." The voice was certain now. Reassured, the figure turned to the side.

"Who are you?" Sakura took another step forward, then another. This voice, this person…

The answer was there – in the back of her mind – she could almost_feel_ it. The name was on the tip of her tongue.

Sakura broke into a run. This person was so familiar. "Who are you?"

At the sound of her steps, the figure looked up sharply. Shadow still covered his face. His eyes.

Mist shrouded his body for a moment and Sakura was afraid that he was gone.

But when he reappeared, he was closer.

"Stop. You are not real. She's gone. She's never coming back." The voice came through hardened and determined. "She's not alive, she's dea–"

The voice faltered. He couldn't bring himself to say it. He watched her struggle forward through the mist and darkness.

Sakura stumbled on something, then righted herself. She was getting closer, little by little. She calculated that the figure was only about forty yards away now.

She took another step forward.

A soft step echoed hers through the emptiness.

Sakura looked up and froze.

The figure had taken a step towards her. He seemed to stiffen for a moment. Sakura was close enough to see his hands clenching tightly at his sides. His knuckles whitened. His head bowed.

He quickly snatched his foot back.

"You fool!" The voice rang out, grating against Sakura's ears. It was hard, cold, unfeeling. Wiped blank of emotion. The figure glared sharply at the floor.

Sakura blinked. Was he talking to her?

"She is dead. She is gone forever. Accept it."

Sakura took a slight step forward. She had a feeling that he was talking to himself. His voice… It was so familiar… The answer was so close…

"Don't dare to hope. There is no more hope. Hope makes you weaker than that_Dobe_, Naruto. Weak."

Sakura froze. _Naruto?_ Images flashed through her mind – blonde hair, ramen, smiles, blue eyes, red eyes and ragged whisker marks scared skin.

With a hushed moan, she put her hand to her forehead. The image of red eyes with slitted pupils reverberated through her mind. A word – Jinch – Jinchu…something. What was it? It was so important… How had she forgotten?

Then the memories passed. Mist swirled between the two figures.

Sakura snapped to attention. Mist obscured her vision. Was he gone? He couldn't be gone. She had the answer. It was there, she could feel it. Somewhere…

Mist seemed to swirl in her mind.

"Who are you?" She yelled out in desperation. She needed to know. _Needed_ to.

Sakura charged through the mist, crossing her arms over her face to shield it from the cold. She ran forward and stopped.

The mist was too thick. She couldn't see, couldn't sense, couldn't think, couldn't remember.

She whirled around, lost. She cupped her hands over her mouth a screamed out, "Who are you!"

Mist swirled and twisted. Blanket after blanket smothered her in gray. Cold and unforgiving.

Suddenly a sharp gust of wind knocked into her, banishing the mist around her.

Sakura whirled around, guided by instinct, but found her arms clasped tightly behind her back. She gasped sharply.

Cold metal greeted her neck. She twisted around to face him.

Blood red eyes met green.

Sharingan. Blessing. Curse. Revenge.

Words jumped at her mind.

_Sharingan?_

Green eyes widened. Red eyes narrowed.

"Who are you?" Sakura whispered. She could feel the answer fighting against the mist in her mind.

The metal pressed harder against her throat.

Sakura looked past the eyes. She traced the outline of his face with her gaze. Sharp lines, furrowed brows, brooding, dark and sad.

So familiar… So familiar…

Something glinted against the darkness. She tipped her head back farther, not heeding the blade pressing closer to her neck.

On his forehead. She squinted in the dark.

It was a plate of metal with a strange design carved into it: a spiral with an upturned end and a little nub opposite that.

A hitai-ate. Konoha.

Sakura blinked. What were these words?

Suddenly her hands were grasped tighter and she cried out in pain.

"Leave me alone," he hissed into her ear. She knew that he was talking to her now. "You haunt me every day and every night. But now you will leave me alone."

The blade left her throat and Sakura watched as he raised it above her.

Her mind raced, not from fear, but from longing. His name… She knew… What was it?

He released her hands. The kunai began its descent.

Another time – another place – a memory had tormented her for years.

Sakura closed her eyes.

_A breeze ruffles her hair. Tears run down her face._

_She is desperate, frantic. He can't leave – he can't!_

_She loves him._

_She screams after him. Don't go._

_Her heart screams again, I love you. But you don't care._

_Suddenly the breeze again. Time slows._

_He is behind her. He whispers._

_Arigatou._

"Sayonara," he whispered.

_Then darkness. And she knows that he is gone. Maybe for forever._

"Sasuke-kun!"

Her eyes flew open.

The knife stopped its sharp descent an inch from her pale skin. It stayed there, quivering and undecided.

Then it dropped.

Sakura heard the strange triangle knife clatter to the floor.

Kunai.

The word slipped fluidly through her mind as if it had always belonged.

She turned slowly.

He held his head in his hands. His first sign of weakness.

Memories, all of them unlived by her – she is sure – flooded through her mind.

The academy, the way the wood desks smelled on rainy days. A large mountain with faces. Four – no, five – five faces. White hair, green vest. Bells tinkled in her mind.

Ninjutsu. Genjutsu. Taijutsu.

Swirling blue light, strength and power. Glowing green for healing.

Memories rushed through her mind, then dissipated. They could not find their places alongside biology tests and hunger and foster homes and Alex McGreyson.

All the memories were banished and locked somewhere in a dark corner of her mind, but his name stayed with her.

Sasuke…

She reached out to touch him.

His head snapped up.

Desperate black met fearful green.

"Sakura."

Mist consumed them both.

--x--

Sakura bolted straight up in her bed, panting heavily. She cast about wildly. She was still in her room.

Desk, dresser, closet.

No mist. No boy.

_What the hell kind of a dream was that?_

Sasuke…

Sakura failed her biology test that morning, but that night, she prayed that she would get to see _him_ again.

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I guessed that I should post this before finals week…

When I'm going to die…

Haha, so yeah…

The plot thickens. :D

--K


	3. Konoha

Hello all!

So sorry that this chapter is late. (I apologize especially to my friend Alison)

But I had trouble writing this one. I scrapped an entire chapter, and then rewrote it.

And then I didn't like it, so I edited it half to death... Yeah...

It didn't flow...

But hopefully now it does. :D Yuppers!

Well, thanks for keeping up with this!

--K

Disclaimer: I don't own squat.

Dedicated to Alison because she's awesome. And it was her birthday last month. xD

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Sasuke kicked at Naruto ruthlessly.

Sweat dripped down his temple, fueled by the bright Konoha sun.

He cursed as Naruto disappeared in a puff of gray. Sasuke slipped shuriken between his fingers and sent them whirling through the trees where his instincts told him that the real dobe was.

Another puff of gray.

"Kusso."

Sasuke whirled around to face the dozen kage bunshin charging him. How had he let them sneak up on him?

Naruto after Naruto disappeared in plumes of gray as Sasuke slashed and hacked through them all.

Suddenly a fist dived in from his blind spot.

Sasuke tried to block, but he wasn't fast enough.

The fist connected with his cheek with a sickening crunch.

Sasuke flew back a few feet and collapsed on the ground, rolling a few of times from the impact.

Stunned, the rest of the kage bunshin disappeared, leaving only the real Naruto behind.

"Sasuke-teme!" Naruto ran towards his fallen friend and crouched down. "What's wrong with you? Your defense is horrible! You aren't acting like yourself at all today!"

"For once, Naruto is right, Sasuke," Kakashi said as he approached also.

Naruto whirled on him. "What do you mean '_for once'_?"

Kakashi ignored Naruto and lowered his book. Sasuke simply sat up in the dirt and wiped the small trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth. He frowned.

Sasuke could feel Kakashi's gaze. It seemed heavy with his former sensei's disappointment and worry.

Sasuke anticipated the words on the tip of Kakashi's tongue. Sasuke knew that his sparring hadn't been this awful since Sakura–

Kakashi sighed.

"What's wrong Sasuke?" Kakashi wisely chose to ask instead. "You didn't even activate your Sharingan. You aren't taking this seriously. Naruto was going easy on you."

Sasuke's scowl deepened.

"I know," he said. "I could feel him going easy on me."

Naruto didn't say anything. After a moment of silence, he offered Sasuke a hand.

Sasuke looked up at it. At one time, less than two years ago, he would have refused the help or would have batted the hand aside angrily.

After a moment, Sasuke grasped Naruto's hand and felt the warmth and strength in the hand as the dobe help him up.

Sasuke avoided Naruto's questioning gaze as he dusted off his pants and worked to wipe his expression blank. He tried and failed to fight the deep scowl that crept onto his face.

He didn't want anyone to ask him what was wrong.

He supposed that he could ignore the questions like he always had in the years before, but that stupid promise that he had made to Sakura still burned in his mind. He refused to disgrace her memory by breaking his promise to her.

The first, last, and only promise that he had made to her.

_"Sasuke-kun. I know people are still angry at you and treat you awfully, but please, Sasuke-kun, I can't see you hurt yourself by hurting them… Please… Just try to answer some of their questions and maybe when you open up, they will accept you more. Don't make yourself regret shutting everyone out again. There are people that understand – or are trying to understand. Promise me that you'll try to open up more, ne? Sasuke-kun?"_

He remembered grunting in reply. He had always been so ungrateful to her.

Even though she had been the one to whisk him away to the hospital two years ago when he had staggered through Konoha's gates, bloody and wounded and nearly unconscious. She alone had tended to his injuries, frantically stemming the flow of blood and stopping the internal bleeding. She had fought with Tsunade to drop his ANBU guard down to only four, then to two, and finally only one – Kakashi.

She had brought him good things to eat – home-cooked meals that replaced the awful, formless hospital food. She had stopped Naruto from ripping him to shreds with embraces, and then with threats and blows. She had checked up on him once a day. He's sure that she purposely shortened her visits and their frequency to make him look forward to seeing her.

She and Naruto were the only ones who had tried to treat him as if nothing had happened.

And the day that he had been released from the hospital, Sasuke found that he missed the anticipation of seeing her every day. He missed the way that she worked, busily and efficiently to save lives. He missed the way her voice commanded respect whenever he heard her down the hall in the hospital.

He missed the way her ridiculous pink hair floated around her face. The way her eyes lit up when she smiled. The way she looked at him – as if he weren't a monster or an Uchiha – just… Sasuke-kun.

And Sasuke found out, on that day, that he had fallen in love with the one girl he had vowed never to show affection to.

Or maybe he had loved her all along, and he had just been too arrogant to admit it to himself and too blinded by power to feel it.

His heart had hardened to stone, and she had been the one to melt it.

Sakura… Ever since she had disappeared, she haunted him every day and every night, but now…

Now his dreams about her were different. She was different. He could feel it somewhere deep inside of him that something had changed and–

"–asuke! Oi! Uchiha! Wake up!"

Sasuke whipped his head up.

Naruto bellowed into his friend's ear and made to smack him over the head.

Sasuke blocked. And missed.

Naruto's blow connected with the back of Sasuke's head, and he saw stars.

Sasuke shook his head to clear it. He glared at Naruto and rubbed his throbbing skull. "_Dobe_! What the hell was that for?"

Naruto stood, agape. "You… didn't block it?"

Sasuke scowled and glanced to the side. "Tch."

Naruto blinked back his shock. Then he frowned playfully. "C'mon, Teme! You're slower than usual today! You were no challenge at all! What's wrong with you?"

Sasuke hesitated a moment. Could he tell Naruto about his dreams? Would the idiot even believe him? Or would he blab to all of Konoha, and then everyone would know that the last Uchiha was finally going insane?

They would all think that he had finally succumbed to the grief – and to his guilt. No one but Naruto and Kakashi and the Godaime would ever believe that he was innocent.

They were the only ones who knew that he would never have done anything like_that_ to Sakura.

She had meant the world to him at that point in his life. She had been his only link to reality and a normal life – not a life of desperately seeking power and blind revenge.

She alone had helped him overcome his urges to continue to seek more power and kill more people. She had helped him conquer the shadows in his life, and he would never have–

"Sasuke."

He looked up. Kakashi had disappeared. Sasuke found himself beside Naruto on the road back to Konoha from the training grounds. He supposed that his feet had started moving automatically, and he had been so immersed in his thoughts that he hadn't realized that he had been moving.

Remembering Sakura did that to him. Often.

Very often.

In order to focus, he had begun to block out his memories of her more and more frequently. That block had started during missions, but now it was so automatic that he was struggling to remember certain parts of her.

He no longer remembered the exact shade of pink her hair had been.

In his dreams, her hair looked… faded. No longer entirely pink.

Sasuke looked over. "What, Naruto?"

Naruto was focused on the ground on front of him. His eyes were in shadow, and for a brief moment, a gust of wind splayed out his headband's ties behind him.

"Sasuke. If you can't trust your friends with your problems, who can you trust?" Naruto asked. His voice was no longer playful.

Once again, for the millionth time, Sasuke reminded himself that this Naruto was more mature and serious than the one he had left behind so many years ago. He looked at his friend in wonder.

"If you don't share what's troubling you, you'll start thinking that you don't need friends, and you'll end up turning into the same thing that you used to be when you left," Naruto said, gravity deepening his voice.

Suddenly, Naruto looked up. Blue flashed and met black. Sasuke noted that his eyes were dead serious in their concern.

Sasuke was silent for a moment more, and he watched as despair worked its way into his friend's eyes.

Sasuke looked away. He couldn't stand it any longer.

_"Don't make yourself regret shutting everyone out again. There are people that understand – or are trying to understand. Promise me that you'll try to open up more, ne? Sasuke-kun?"_

"I'm seeing Sakura."

The steady crunch of Naruto's shoes on the dirt instantly stopped. Sasuke stopped also.

He looked up.

Naruto was looking at him with wide eyes. "Sasuke…" Then his eyes sharply narrowed.

Suddenly, an orange and black blur tackled Sasuke to a tree by the road. Claws held his throat against the bark.

Naruto's eyes blazed a fiery red. The whisper marks grew sharper on his cheeks, and when he blinked again, his pupils were slitted.

"Teme!" Naruto growled and tightened his hold on Sasuke's neck. "Don't joke about Sakura-chan. Don't you damn–!"

"I'm not joking," Sasuke said evenly. His eyes narrowed. He had expected this reaction to some degree, but not this furiously.

Chakra-laden hands pressed against Sasuke's throat, and for a moment, red eyes searched black.

Then Naruto let go.

Sasuke leaned a hand against the tree to steady himself. His heartbeat was ragged and unsettled from the encounter.

He quickly tried to steady it. He would never admit it, but Naruto always unnerved him when he was like that. The Kyuubi was not a force to be trifled with.

It would kill him in an instant if Naruto wasn't there to stop it.

But what scared Sasuke the most was not the threat of death – it was that the Kyuubi was a force capable of stealing Naruto away forever.

Sasuke shook his head to clear it. He had no room in his mind now to even consider losing another friend. He was already muddled from his recent… encounters... with Sakura.

Just then, he hadn't activated his Sharingan. Kakashi and Naruto had been right.

He was really out of form today.

"Teme. What do you mean?"

The question sounded ragged, torn.

It ripped through Sasuke's thick blanket of thought.

Naruto stood off to the side. Hands clenched, eyes cast downwards. His body trembled, Sasuke supposed, from fighting the urge to rip his best friend to shreds.

"What do you mean?" Naruto demanded again.

"Naruto…" Sasuke looked away. He didn't know what exactly to tell him. He hadn't even planned on telling anyone at all.

Sasuke sighed. But what the hell did he have to lose?

"I'm seeing her in my dreams. – But it's different. Not so much like a dream. It's more… real. It's almost like it's really her."

Naruto looked up at his friend. Sasuke met his eyes.

Confused blue eyes searched black ones. "What…?"

"I don't even know." Sasuke sat down heavily and leaned his back against the tree. He frowned at the leaves on the ground. "Every other week or so, I have this dream. I'm in a field of mist, and she's there.

"The first time it happened, I attacked her. I just… wanted to get rid of her. Make her stop haunting me."

There was a soft thump. Sasuke glanced up.

Naruto was sitting beside him. "Yeah? What else?"

Sasuke felt his emotionless facade slip. His eyes widened before he could stop them. "You believe me?"

Naruto grinned. "Who else can you trust besides your friends?"

"Hn," Sasuke grunted automatically. Then he blinked and said, "Yeah. You're right."

Naruto nodded eagerly. "Ne? Ne? Then what happened?"

"The first time, when I attacked her, I figured that if I destroyed her image, I could rid myself of my constant thoughts about her. But when I tried to follow through on the attack, she… said my name… And I found that I couldn't do it. She sounded too much like… the real Sakura."

Sasuke paused. He wasn't used to talking this much. Only with Naruto would he even consider talking like this.

Naruto was silent for once, keeping the option open for Sasuke to continue.

Sasuke brought a knee up and rested his elbow against it as he thought. After a moment, he continued. "I think last night was my third time seeing her… We just… talked… It was weird. I'm sure it was a dream now, because she kept on describing these weird things called_biorajii_ and_ingurishi_. I'm not sure what they mean."

"Hey!" Naruto stood up quickly.

Sasuke looked up. "What?"

"We could go ask Tsunade-obaa-chan!" Naruto said excitedly. "It sounds like something she would know."

Naruto pranced gleefully down the path.

Sasuke followed wordlessly. It was as he had predicted.

Naruto would spread everything all over Konoha. And this would turn into just one more thing for Sasuke to have to live down in order to resurrect his clan's dignity.

But for some reason, Sasuke felt no regret for telling Naruto.

--------

When the boys were gone, Kakashi silently dropped to the ground. He was slightly disappointed in his former students. Neither had detected his presence. He thought he had trained them better than that.

Then again, he had been concealing his chakra, and detecting a hidden jounin was quite a feat for any chuunin.

And Sasuke hadn't had his Sharingan activated to help him detect outside threats.

But that was what worried Kakashi the most.

Even when Sasuke had been attacked, he had been distracted to the point where he couldn't even activate his Sharingan in a battle situation. Twice.

Kakashi frowned and crouched beside the tree that Sasuke had leaned against.

Sakura, huh?

Sasuke's thoughts of her constantly interfered with his concentration.

Kakashi could tell that Sasuke was thinking about her by the way his gaze became vacant – detached from reality.

Kakashi knew that it was fine to hold one's lost teammates in respect; resurrecting memories of fallen comrades was not always a bad thing.

It just depended on knowing when to keep those memories and regrets from becoming an obsession.

But then again, Kakashi wasn't entirely sure that Sasuke's dreams were only related to his refusal to let Sakura go.

There was something that Kakashi had never told his pupils. Something that he had kept between him and Tsunade-sama. Both of his remaining students would kill him if they ever found out what he had known and never told them.

Kakashi rose.

He had to get to Tsunade-sama before the boys did.

It was about time that she told the boys that Sakura had left on her own free will.


	4. Turning Japanese

Hello all! Sorry, I've had a really busy month so far... And it's barely half-way through...

UGH!

School is being evil... but what else is new, huh?

Ok, before you read this, know that I'm a firm supporter of Japanese dub in animes. English dub ruins EVERYTHING... And by everything, I mean EVERYTHING.

They speak Japanese in Konoha, not English. Just know that before you read on. :D

--K

Dedicated to my good friend, Alison. I love you even though we disagree over everything. :D

--

Sakura opened the door to her house and stepped inside.

"Tadaima!" She immediately clamped her hand over her mouth. She kicked the door closed softly behind her.

What the hell was she saying?

It was happening again.

The memory of what had happened in French class wound briefly through her mind.

Mr. Manette had called on her to translate a difficult sentence into French that no one else could, and she had been excited to prove herself. She had known the answer.

All that had come out of her mouth was gibberish.

"Kinou no shaken ga muzukashikunakatta de, watashi wa totemo kanashi–."

Silence.

Sakura had blinked. _What the hell_–?

Mr. Manette had been looking at her. The whole class had been looking at her.

She had slid down in her seat. "Sorry… I meant that uhm… I don't know the answer." She had slumped farther down, embarrassed beyond belief.

The bell had rang and she fled.

_What the hell was that? I knew the answer. I'm sure I did. And then… What the hell was I saying? It wasn't English–_

Lost in her thoughts, Sakura hadn't heard the soft voice calling her name.

"Sakura Haruno!"

Her head had snapped up and she had glanced through the passing period crowd for a familiar face.

A small figure had been fighting towards her, and the girl had waved.

Sakura had waved back hesitantly. What did Anna want? It was rare that the shy girl talked to anybody, let alone Sakura.

"Hey, Sakura!" Anna had caught up and the two had walked off to the side of the hall to avoid blocking traffic.

"Uhm, hey Anna. What's wrong?"

Anna had tucked a loose strand of dark hair behind her ear and had smiled shyly. "I didn't know that you spoke Japanese! I think it's cool to have somebody else on campus that speaks it."

_Japanese?_ Sakura hadn't known what to say, but the puzzled look on her face had said it all.

Anna had felt pressed to clarify. "You know in French? I mean, it was kinda random, but–"

"Oh. That… I… I didn't know."

Anna had been the one to feel confused now. "What?"

Sakura had looked to the side. She sounded crazy as it was. Why further her problems by revealing them to Anna?

Sakura had caught Anna's gaze and had smiled. "It's nothing. Never mind."

Anna had searched Sakura's face for answers but found none, just as Sakura had hoped. Anna had simply smiled awkwardly. "Sou ka?"

"Sou dayo," Sakura automatically replied. She blinked. _Wait, what–_

"Well, I have to get to class." Anna had drifted to the side and had smiled again, letting the crowd wash her away. She had called back over her shoulder. "Jya ne!"

"Jya ne!" Sakura had echoed without thinking.

Troubled, Sakura had let the thinning crowd sweep her away to her next class.

_Japanese?_

Back in the house, Sakura shook her head to regain control of her thoughts.

She would keep her mind and her mouth in check from now on. She would make sure that nothing freakishly weird like that would ever happen agai–

A voice echoed hollowly down from the second floor of the foster home.

"Sakura! That you?"

"Hai–" Her heart jumped and her hands flew to her mouth. Cursing herself, she took a deep, calming breath and dared to open a little gap in her fingers. "Yeah, Tina. It's me."

"Oh, ok. Social worker's here for you!"

"Oh…"

"He's in the dining room."

The information clicked and broke past all thoughts of her random language switching. Social worker? "Kusso…"

Her hand jerked back to her mouth.

_Dammit!_

Sakura sat awkwardly across Tina's scratched-up, plastic dining table from a Mr. Whitherman… Or was it Whithersome…?

She couldn't remember which.

Whiterman – or Whitersome – leaned his head into his hand, obviously bored. "Just checking, but please state your name," he droned.

"Haruno Sakur–" Sakura blinked and caught herself. "I mean, Sakura Haruno. First name first, right?" She tried to laugh it off. It came out a nervous titter.

Sakura cursed herself. She hated how nervous she got around these social workers, but how was she supposed to react? These people decided her future, and more than one had screwed up her life in the past.

"Right…" Whitherman glanced up, then back down at her file. "First name first… We are in America after all…"

_America… Not Japan_, thought Sakura, troubled. Did the Japanese put their last names first? She remembered that the Chinese did, so maybe the Japanese did also? But–

"Miss Haruno?"

Sakura snapped back to attention. "Hai – I mean – Yes?"

Whitherman blinked, then shook his head.

Sakura grit her teeth as she imagined the sort of thing running through his mind. _These foster children. All the same. Futureless, hopeless, and worthless._

"Well, Miss Haruno, I'm here to discuss your 18th birthday. After you become an adult, you will no longer be considered a ward of the state…"

Sakura sat up straighter, pretended to pay attention, and dug in for the long haul.

It was going to be a wonderfully interesting afternoon.

--

"Tsunade-obaa-chan!" Naruto flung the door open and burst into the office.

"Dobe. Don't be so reckless," Sasuke muttered. But Naruto was already inside the office. Sasuke followed reluctantly.

By the time Sasuke crossed through the door, Naruto and Tsunade were bickering. Shizune stood in the background, holding TonTon and protesting Naruto's rudeness.

"Naruto!" Tsunade thundered, rising form her seat and drowning Shizune out. "You need to learn to respect your elders–"

"But, Tsunade-obaa-chan–!"

"I'm_not_ an obaa-chan!" Tsunade took a deep, calming breath and pressed a hard hand to her temples. She sat down and after a moment's pause said softly, "Watch yourself, Uzumaki. Your rudeness and rashness will match Jiraiya's one day."

Naruto sobered instantly.

Sasuke watched his friend's eyes grow sad.

"It would be an honor to be like Ero-Sennin," Naruto said, his eyes hard.

Tsunade was silent in return, watching Naruto. For a moment, Sasuke could have sworn that he saw a smile flutter across her lips. Then it was gone.

Naruto glanced up, his eyes bright again. "Ne? Ne? Tsunade-obaa-chan, I had a question – or actually Sasuke had a question."

For the first time, Tsunade's gaze turned to rest on Sasuke. "Oh really?"

Sasuke scowled at Naruto. _That guy…_

"What is it, Sasuke?" Tsunade asked.

Instantly Sasuke snapped his gaze to rest on the Godaime. He could have sworn that there was something in her voice…

Anticipation? Regret? Sympathy?

He didn't want her sympathy.

Sasuke stepped forward, hiding his reluctance. He still remembered the day that he had reported Sakura missing. He remembered Tsunade's shock and rage, which were only natural considering the circumstances. He – the then recently recovered missing-nin – had been the last one to see her precious prodigy. Tsunade had known how much trust that Sakura had placed in him, and Tsunade had assumed that Sasuke had betrayed that trust.

But that was before Naruto had stepped in to defend him. Naruto had sworn on his own life that Sasuke was innocent.

Still, Tsunade had been wary, until suddenly a day later, she dismissed him of guilty entirely.

Sasuke knew that she had ordered a search of Sakura's house. He knew that something had been found that day that had cleared his name. Something that mattered more to Tsunade than Naruto's word.

Sasuke scowled at the smooth, wooden floor. He didn't want to tell Tsunade about his dream.

She had kept information from him – the important information that had cleared his name, and perhaps would clear him in his own mind from guilt. She had kept him from peace of mind these past two years. She had kept him buried in his own guilt. And she knew it too. She had been punishing him.

Why should he have to tell her anything?

After another pause, he looked up. "What is _biorajii_ and _ingurishi_?"

Tsunade blinked, shocked for a moment, as if she had been expecting him to say something else.

Sasuke almost narrowed his eyes, but caught himself. What had she been expecting him to ask?

To cover her quiet shock, Tsunade cleared her throat and frowned, as if thinking. "I've heard both words before. I know that _biorajii_ is the study of life – actually all the medic-nins study – _Oi!_ Sasuke! What's wrong?"

Sasuke shook the stricken look from his eyes. "Nothing. Please continue."

Tsunade paused for a moment, scrutinizing his carefully crafted expression. She blinked and continued.

"_Ingurishi_?" She twined her fingers together and tucked them under her chin. She frowned, thinking. "I haven't heard of that in a long, long time."

Naruto stepped forward quickly. "So you know what it is?"

"Yes." Tsunade watched Sasuke with piercing golden eyes.

Sasuke stifled the urge to show any expression at all. He stifled the urge to hurdle over the Godamie's desk and shake her shoulders until she had told him the connection between these foreign words and Sakura. He stifled the urge to hope that his dreams were anything more than that –_ dreams_.

Tsunade looked away and Sasuke felt himself heave a silent sigh as the pressure of her gaze left. He had to work harder to be defiant than years before when bitterness towards the world came as a second-nature.

"Shizune!"

"Hai, Tsunade-sama!" Shizune snapped to attention.

"I need you to find a book for me," Tsunade said and scribbled something on a slip of paper. She handed it to a waiting Shizune.

Sasuke tried craning his neck without being too obvious about it. He caught a glimpse of garish, clumsy figures scarred onto the paper. His eyes narrowed. _What kind of strange–?_

"Tsunade-sama!" Shizune's eyes widened. "This is–"

"Yes." Tsunade had placed her hands back under her chin. "I need that book."

"Ha-hai!" Shizune set TonTon on the floor, snapped a hasty bow, and dashed from the room.

Sasuke and Naruto watched the door slam shut. Naruto whirled back around.

"Ne! Ne! Tsunade-obaa-chan!" Naruto was at her desk in an instant. "What kind of book did you send Shizune onee-san to get?"

Tsunade was silent for a moment. Her entwined hands had risen from her chin and now rested an inch from her nose, hiding half of her face.

She ignored Naruto.

"Sasuke," she said. "Where did you hear about _ingurishi_?"

Sasuke felt as if all the air in the room had been sucked away. He could barely breathe. Until now, he had assumed that the words from his dream were simply gibberish. Now that someone – the Hokage even! – had proven that they were real, tangible things, who was to say that the rest wasn't real too?

_Sakura could still be out there…_

"Oi, Teme." Naruto poked him in the ribs. "Just tell her."

Sasuke blinked away his thick blanket of thought. He assessed the situation and made a quick decision. One that he prayed would not be the wrong one.

Sasuke turned to Tsunade. Head held high. Shoulders back. Eyes level and haughty gaze unwavering. He scowled. "I won't tell you anything until you tell me about the evidence that cleared my name."

He could tell at once that Tsunade knew exactly what he was talking about.

She calmly blinked away her surprise. "The evidence about Sakura?"

Sasuke was silent. They both knew that was what he meant.

Tsunade sighed and stood. She turned and, much to both boys' surprise, stuck her head out her office's open window.

"Oi, Kakashi. We can't avoid it now," she called out.

Green gloves appeared at the window's top edges. Kakashi flipped down onto the window ledge.

"Yo, Naruto, Sasuke," he said cheerfully.

Naruto blinked. "Kakashi-sensei? Didn't you go home after training? Were you listening to our conversation?"

"Obviously," Sasuke muttered. He glared at Kakashi. What did his old sensei know about the situation that he himself didn't?

Kakashi settled himself against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest. He gazed calmly at his two former students. "You're probably wondering how this involves me," he began.

Naruto nodded. Sasuke was still.

Kakashi frowned slightly. "I headed the investigation of Sakura's apartment."

Sasuke felt his eyes widen. _What the hell–?_

Tsunade jumped in. "It was at my request that former ANBU, Hatake Kakashi, head this investigation." She glanced at Kakashi leaning against the wall. "I knew that since he had such a personal connection with the missing person, he would do a thorough job."

Kakashi nodded once. "I found something that day that cleared your name for good, Sasuke."

Sasuke glared.

Kakashi rubbed the back of his head and smiled. The corners of his mask puckered. "But you probably already knew that."

"What did you find?" Naruto prompted.

"Jutsu scrolls," Kakashi said simply. He caught Sasuke's gaze and held it. "Sakura had been working on her own jutsu."

Sasuke's scowl deepened. "But what does that have to do with anything?"

Tsunade dropped her hands to her desk. "Sakura's jutsu was the reason she disappeared."

Sasuke felt the room tilt and swirl. The ever-present pressure of guilt and shame and self-loathing was finally, finally gone. He was not to blame for Sakura's disappearance. He was free.

A smile pricked the edges of his mouth. Free.

But she was still gone.

Sasuke snapped back to reality. "So it really wasn't me?"

"No," Tsunade said. Her gaze caught Sasuke's. The regret in her eyes conveyed the apology that she was too proud to voice aloud.

Sasuke dipped his head in a nod. A silent and instant wave of relief washed over her face as he accepted her apology. Then his eyes darkened. "Why didn't you tell us this sooner?"

"I know!" Naruto chimed in. He was frowning now too. Sakura had always been a painful subject for him. Sasuke had seen him vow to bring her back, and Sasuke knew that his friend never broke a promise.

"We couldn't tell you until the timing was right," Kakashi said calmly. He exchanged a look with Tsunade. She nodded, and he turned back to Naruto and Sasuke.

"We think that there is a way to bring her back."


	5. Dark Conversations

Hey! Gah...

Sorry it took so long to update, but school's been really annoying lately. It gets in the way of all the important stuff... Like fanfic and anime and manga. :D

Hahaha, jk.

But seriously, I've been trudging through Tennyson for the past month, and now I have an essay due Monday, Standardized Testing to kill, two journalism articles due Friday, drummajor applications due in a couple weeks (another essay for that one...), and... AP TEST FOR BIOLOGY IS COMING UP!! GAAAHHH!!

Shinde imasu... I'm dying... :

My English project partner that I had to deal with for the last month was being a total retard about our project... In the profound words of one genius shinobi...

Mendokuseiiiiiiiii!! Baka too...

I'm never working with that baka ever again.

Well, my rant is done... (Nobody even reads these anyways... BLAHBLAHBLAHBLAHBLAH!)

Dedicated to my good friend, Alison. May your days be as carefree as mine are troubled. :)

Disclaimer: I'm too busy to own anything. Right now, I don't even own my own soul. School does.

--K

--

Tsunade led them down a torch-lit, spiral staircase. Sasuke followed behind Naruto. Kakashi brought up the rear.

"Tsunade-obaa-chan!" Naruto whined for the twelfth time. "Where are we going?"

For the twelfth time, Tsunade ignored him. Naruto groaned in frustration.

Sasuke smirked. He suspected that Naruto's agitation had much to do with the creepiness of the hallway. That dobe was always such a _bibi-neko_. Scaredy-Cat.

Sasuke guessed that they were at least 40 yards beneath the Hokage's building. Tsunade had led them from her office to a dark, easily over-looked door on the first floor. The door had opened to a closet, but Tsunade had pressed a hand to the back and sent a quick pulse of chakra through the wall. Sasuke had heard something click quietly and the back wall had slid open to reveal another door. Torches had flickered through the small gap, and had shone a wavering light into the closet.

They had followed Tsunade, and Kakashi had sealed the door behind them, leaving them facing a dim, stone hallway. Tsunade had taken a sharp, immediate left through an opening hidden in the shadows. A long, downward-sloping labyrinth of pathways had followed, and then the long spiral staircase.

"Tsunade-obaa-chan!" Naruto cringed away from his flickering shadow. "Where are we go– _ahtt!_"

Sasuke stopped sharply before running into Naruto. _Dobe_, Sasuke chided silently as Naruto staggered back from his collision with Tsunade.

Easily brushing off Naruto, Tsunade turned to face the inner wall.

Sasuke frowned. Tsunade was examining the embedded stones. What was she–?

Tsunade slapped her hands together to form a seal. She quickly shifted through a long sequence of handseals. Then, with an air of finality, she formed the last one. Tiger.

"Kai!" she commanded.

Blue kanji scrawled vertically up the wall. Sasuke watched in fascination. He recognized the characters as the ones from the handseals that Tsunade had used. Once at Tsunade's head-height, the glowing writing pivoted quickly to the right. After a few moments, the kanji line shifted down and reached the floor to complete the doorframe.

The stone of the wall disappeared.

A sharp gust of wind sucked into the gaping cavity, swirling dust and air. Sasuke felt the vacuum tug at his hair and clothes. Then it stopped. Dust billowed about their feet.

Tsunade simply plucked a torch from the bracket closest to the door and stepped into the room.

Naruto, noticing that he was all alone at the front, dashed in after her. "Ch-chotto matte!"

Sasuke and Kakashi followed closely behind. Sasuke hesitated for only a moment before stepping into the freezing chamber.

Tsunade's torch lit up only a small portion of the black room. She reached the back of the musty chamber in three quick strides. Sasuke craned his neck in a feeble attempt to see.

Naruto was closer and saw it first. Sasuke heard his sharp gasp.

Unable to withstand the suspense any longer, Sasuke pushed off the floor with a small burst of chakra. He was beside Naruto in an instant.

Sasuke could not wipe the surprise from his face.

The stone wall was blank.

Sasuke stepped towards Tsunade. Had they gone the wrong way?

Then Tsunade placed her hand on a single stone. A blue flash of chakra flickered around the edges of the stone. Tsunade pulled her hand back, and the stone came with it.

Naruto dashed the few steps forward. Sasuke followed quickly after.

The stone was hollow, like a drawer. The bottom was shadowed in darkness. Then Tsunade lifted her torch up higher.

The wavering light caught the jutsu scrolls down inside the hidden drawer. With her free hand, Tsunade reached in and lifted three out. She turned and faced the two boys.

Sasuke stood, frozen. Those were the scrolls that had stolen Sakura away from him.

The torchlight flickered, playing on the pink and green ribbons that tied the scrolls closed.

"Sasuke."

He looked up to face the Hokage. Her golden eyes shone in and out of the light, but her gaze was unwavering.

"Hai, Tsunade-sama," Sasuke said. He blinked. Had he just used an honorific?

"You have some sort of contact with Sakura – No, don't try to deny it. And don't think that you're crazy."

Sasuke closed his mouth. His protest died.

"You and Sakura are linked. You remember how. I don't have to tell you," Tsunade continued. "But tell me. How do you contact her?"

Sasuke closed his eyes for the briefest of moments. His previous animosity was hard to shake. A lifetime of holding a single grudge made it so much easier for other grudges to take root in his heart. But things were different now. He had to tell the Hokage what he knew if he was to ever get Sakura back.

Sakura was more precious than any grudge.

His eyes fluttered open. "I dream about her."

Tsunade nodded, thoughtful. "It makes sense now."

"What does?" Naruto interjected from his rare silence.

Tsunade glanced at Naruto. "When you read the scrolls, you'll find out." She turned back to Sasuke. "Sasuke. How often do you see her?"

"Every other week. Sometimes not at all," Sasuke said, his voice cold. He hated thinking about those weeks that he went without seeing her. It tormented him, looking forward to the night when he should see her, and then ending up deprived and disappointed. "I'm supposed to see her next week."

Tsunade looked to the side for a moment. Sasuke could tell that she was calculating something in her mind.

She glanced up sharply, her eyes ablaze with excitement. "Sasuke! I am assigning you an S-ranked mission." She thrust the scrolls towards him. "Learn Sakura's jutsu before the end of the week. You will bring her home."

--

Sakura sat side by side with Sasuke, almost touching.

She could not meet his eyes while she was trying to decide whether to answer his question or not.

More often than not, he would expertly dodge her own questions, as if he were used to being evasive. But sometimes – but not a great deal – he would seem to catch himself, and he would open up just a little bit and answer her question. His answers were always straight to the point, and he never wandered in his conversation, but Sakura always considered this better than when he often did not catch himself and managed to twist the conversation away or just kept silent.

To Sakura, his quiet nature seemed to be habit. One that was extremely difficult for him to break out of. At least he just talked to her now. The first time that she had met with him in this bizarre, mist-filled dream world, he had tried to attack her.

After that first confrontation that Sakura strangely had little memory of, the two began sitting together. Sasuke had been the first to hesitantly ask a question, but since then hadn't asked her much else.

Except now, he had asked Sakura a particularly difficult question for her to answer. It was awkward, and she wasn't sure how she would explain.

"_Are you… happy… where you live now?"_ he had asked cautiously.

She had opened her mouth to answer him. And quickly found that she did not have a ready answer.

Well, she had an answer, but she was reluctant to say anything about it. These feelings and emotions were all too new for her. She had no idea how to phrase her response.

And she didn't want to admit that the stories he sometimes told – especially the ones about… _Narotu-somebody?_ (she couldn't remember his name, but could feel that he was really important) – sparked uncomfortable things inside of her.

There was something stirring inside her – something unpleasant but not altogether unfamiliar – that she could not name. Every time that she was with Sasuke, that feeling in her heart got more heavy and burdensome. Sometimes she regretted coming because the burden in her heart was growing almost too heavy to bear.

Would she tell him the truth? Would she be able to put her feelings into words? Would he think that she was crazy and shun her like everyone else had?

But what did it hurt to tell him?

He wasn't real.

It's not like he could get her locked up in an insane asylum or anything…

Sakura took a deep breath. "Sometimes I feel like I don't belong there," she began and kept her gaze steady on the shifting floor.

For a moment, she felt unnerved – either by what she was admitting to him or by his unfaltering gaze. He never looked away, as if he was savoring her presence. He was always like this. Always silent, always a little sorrowful, and always watching her, drinking in the sight of her. He never interrupted her when she was talking and always listened.

"And the place that you were talking about earlier – it just, I dunno, it made me… remember things I never lived through – _couldn't_ have lived through. But they're so… clear. They couldn't have been dreams," Sakura mused, half to herself.

Sasuke was silent.

Sakura laughed a little half-heartedly. "But when I wake up, all these… _memories_ seem to disappear. They seem to fizzle away, and I can't hold onto them. I have too much to worry about in real life. I have English tests and…people… to deal with at school."

Sakura caught herself before she mentioned Alex. It would do no good to make Sasuke think that she was weak or something. Something inside of her desperately wanted to prove her strength to Sasuke – even if he was only a figment of her imagination.

"English?"

Sakura blinked and looked up. She thought that he had been trying to start up the conversation again. Then she realized that he was also confused – which didn't happen very often.

"Is _Ingurishi_ some sort of jutsu?"

Sakura blinked. "No. It's the language we're speaking."

"Sou ka?" Sasuke's frown deepened

Suddenly she blinked. _What the hell?_

Anna had asked her that same thing – "Sou ka?" _It that so?_

"Nanigo?" Sakura whirled on Sasuke, frightened. Instantly her hands clamped over her mouth. Damn! Now she was doing it too! Had she been speaking Japanese this entire time with him? How had she not noticed?!

"Sakura," Sasuke leaned in, concerned. "Daijoubu?"

_Are you alright?_

Sakura found herself automatically translating in her mind. It flowed and clicked and made sense. It was natural.

"Ha – Yes," she stammered out. English sounded harsh on her tongue. She stood abruptly. "Atashi – I mean – I have to go."

Sasuke had leapt to his feet also, but she barely noticed him. Her head was swimming.

How had she learned Japanese? She had heard about those random weird people that woke up one day and suddenly knew how to speak Lithuanian or something. Was she a random weird person now too? This whole world was in her dream though, wasn't it? So did she learn this new language from her subconscious?

"Sakura. What's wrong?"

Was he speaking Japanese? She couldn't tell anymore. One language seemed to flow into the other, and in her mind, it was all jumbled up.

What was happening to her?

"Sakura…"

She put her palms to her head, pressing and pushing – trying desperately to block all the nonsense out. She was speaking Japanese in these dreams…

No, these dreams had been the beginning of everything that confused her. They jumbled up her real life – made her act differently and speak differently, and made her seem like a bigger freak than she really was. They confused her, because now she couldn't tell which was more real to her – her dim, mundane life back home – or the place that she couldn't quite remember. Konoha. With Sasuke.

No. This was crazy. She belonged in California, didn't she? She had to leave. Now.

Maybe never come back.

"Atashi – I-I have to go," she clenched her eyes shut swiftly and tried to envision her safe, normal, _real_ bed.

_Wake up, wake up, wake up!_ The mist and blackness around her dimmed.

"Matte!!" A hand clasped her wrist sharply. Sudden darkness claimed her.

Why did he stop her? Furious, Sakura's eyes flew open.

She immediately felt the blush sweeping across her cheeks.

Sasuke stood, hand wrapped around her wrist, his body nearly touching hers, his face inches from hers. Sakura could feel the heat radiating from him. She couldn't help the tremble that tingled through her body from her very core.

He seemed so strong. So solid. So _real_.

Without fully realizing what was happening, Sakura felt herself being drawn closer and closer to him.

Then Sasuke froze. Sakura watched his eyes dart about her face. He seemed to be calculating, wondering if this was what she truly wanted. _He's probably wondering if he'll scare me away for good_, Sakura thought from some detached part of her mind.

And for one who had, only moments before, been intent on running away – she was surprised to find that she didn't want him to stop.

But he didn't know that.

Sasuke dropped her hand quickly and stepped away. He looked off to the side, a shadow passed over his eyes. He looked up, catching her gaze with ease and holding her captive with his eyes alone.

"Ikanaiyo," Sasuke said, his voice hard.

_Don't go_, echoed through Sakura's mind.

For reasons beyond her explanation, Sakura sat back down. She took a deep breath. Sasuke sat down next to her.

"Sorry," he mumbled.

Sakura blinked. The language switching had stopped. "Why?"

He was silent.

Sakura looked away. He was sorry for almost kissing her. "It's alright."

After a moment of tense silence, Sasuke said suddenly, "How old are you?"

"Almost 18," Sakura replied.

Sasuke sucked in a sharp breath.

"What's wrong?" She searched his face for answers, but, whether intentionally or by habit, Sasuke's face instantly went blank.

He muttered something, but Sakura could only pick out, "18…when…disappeared… Almost time…"

Before she could ask, he cut in. "Do you have any parents?"

Sakura's eyes hardened. "No. I grew up without a family." She struggled to hide her bitterness. She tried to be a little bit like Sasuke. He could hide his emotions well. She envied him. "I was alone my whole life."

Sasuke let out a strangled sound.

"What?" Sakura glanced over.

His face was in shadow. He seemed almost reluctant as he slowly said, "I apologize. I'm the one who wished it on you."

"What are you–?"

"The day we were put on a team together, we talked by this stone bench near the Academy. I told you that the anger of your parents couldn't even compare with my loneliness."

A memory tickled at the corners of her mind.

A stone bench, leaves swirling through the air, and a dark-haired boy. An overwhelming feeling of shame and despair. _Loneliness._

Sakura shook her head to clear it. It was nobody's fault that she was an orphan. No one's fault but her own because no one had wanted her. But she didn't want to interrupt Sasuke. It was a rare thing that he talked so much.

"And when I was walking away, I wished it on you. The loneliness. Then you'd see what I had had to endure."

Sakura froze. It wasn't his fault… but he… He had wished this – this, _anguish_ on her?

Sasuke hesitated a moment before continuing. "Maybe I wanted to punish you. But now I think that I just wanted you to understand me. Then I'd finally have somebody to understand."

Sakura was silent, trying to grasp the implications of this.

Sasuke mistook her silence for anger and he hurried to correct himself. "This was before I really knew Naruto. Before Team 7 really began."

Sakura frowned. That name again.

"Na…" She put her hand to her temple. A memory was trying to struggle back into her consciousness.

Something… Something. But it seemed like the harder she tried to remember, the farther away it became. She shook her head.

"Come back with me."

Sakura's head snapped up. "What?!"

Sasuke was suddenly kneeling in front of her. The intensity of his gaze drew hers like a magnet.

Sakura could feel the blush creeping up the back of her neck.

"Come back with me," Sasuke repeated, his gaze unwavering.

But Sakura caught the inner turmoil edging into his voice. A desperate, suppressed hope.

It pained her to see him like this, but what did she matter to him? Why did he want her so badly? They were strangers.

"Where?" She tried to look away, but she couldn't rip her gaze from his.

"To Konoha."

Sakura saw something – a pain, despairing – flash through his eyes.

"Konoha…" A great mountain with carven faces. Grass and trees and cooling breeze. And people… The tall blonde woman with golden eyes made Sakura's heart ache with sorrow. A mysterious man with a mask that was not so mysterious. The young blonde man with a wide smile and bright, blue eyes. And a tall, dark-haired man. Pain and love punctuated her memories. Sasuke.

These memories…could they be real? Could this all be more than a dream?

"Sakura…"

Her mind cleared, and there was only Sasuke in front of her. His eyes flickered between shining hope and darkened despair.

"Pl…Please…" he struggled out. He suddenly looked away. "I…I need you."

But what happens when I wake up? Isn't this a dream…? Unreal…? Reality is back home…

_But where is home?_

"Sasuke…" She reached forward, and with a hesitant hand, touched his arm. Her eyes widened and he looked up.

He was warm. Solid to her touch. Unlike any dream she had ever encountered. He was… real?

She heard her words before she realized that she had spoken. "I'll go. But I can get back, right?"

"Yes." Sakura watched as an excitement – a light – glowed in Sasuke's eyes. A slow, warm smile lit upon his face.

Sakura couldn't help but smile back. _That's the first time I've seen him smile_, she mused.

But as Sasuke stood her up and put his hands together in an oddly familiar form, Sakura couldn't help but wonder what exactly she had gotten herself into.


	6. The Jutsu

Hey! Long time no update. ;D

Sorry. Somehow, school gets busier right before the end, so ew...

16 more days!! Including weekends...

Dedicated to my very very very good friend, Alison. Because it was her birthday about 6 months ago, and I still haven't finished this crazy fanfic! Blame school, my dear.

Disclaimer: Consider this story disclaimed.

--K

--

_"Sasuke-kun!" I run forward. He is bending over the bridge, looking out at the water. His hands rest on the railing. I watch his head slowly turn my way. I step onto the bridge, and my footsteps become hollow and echoed. I smile at him. _

_He frowns back, but I don't mind. I know that he's happy to see me because I caught the water's reflection as his eyes glanced sharply when he heard me run up. He was waiting for me. He was looking forward to this meeting. _

_I hide a smirk, and double over slightly, hands on knees, pretending to be winded. Make him wait a little bit longer to find out why I called him over. _

"_Stop pretending," Sasuke says, his voice hard and unfeeling. I look up, feigning innocence. He gazes down at me, his black eyes piercing mine. "We both know that a jog from Konoha wouldn't wind you at all."_

_I straighten up slowly and take a step forward until we're almost touching. My hands clasp behind my back, and I lean up on my toes to get closer to his face. I'm so close that I bump the chokuto sword hanging at his side. He scowls at me, but I can tell that he is frozen in place._

_I grin. Years ago I wouldn't have dared. But now, he owes me his life – and much, much more besides. And I can tell that he thinks differently of me now. It's just something about the way I feel his sharp, black eyes following me when he thinks I can't sense it. _

_I tilt my face the slightest bit closer. We are so close that our lips almost brush. My eyes dart from his eyes to his lips and back. I let my grin widen. _

"_Well maybe I really wanted to see you _too,_ Sasuke-kun," I murmur through my smirk. I emphasize the fact that I already know that he wanted to see me._

_He is about to respond. His eyes glance away for the shortest of moments – and then he blinks and a fierce resolve replaces the hesitance. He is about to close the distance – I can tell. _

_At the exact moment that he leans forward, I take a graceful step backwards, and without turning, walk past him towards the woods. I allow myself a satisfied smirk as I feel his glare burning a hole in my back. Only when I am halfway to the woods do I turn around._

_He is still on the bridge, right where I left him. I can tell that inside, he is seething with rage. He could tell that I had merely been playing with him, but he wasn't able to resist the bait. I raise my hand and motion him over. I smile at him. "C'mon Sasuke-kun! Don't you want to know why I brought you here?"_

_With a quick burst of chakra, I disappear into the woods. I leap through the trees and hear the subtle _tpp, tpp_, as he follows me across the branches. I have only a second's head start, and it doesn't last me long. He is beside me in an instant. _

_I smile at him, and I detect the slightest hint of a grin quirk at the corners of his mouth. _

_His guard is down. I attack. _

_I had decided earlier. Three shuriken and two kunai. Of course, he disappears in a blur. The kunai and shuriken strike a tree trunk with solid THUNKs_. _I skid back on the thick tree branch. _

_I sense his presence behind me. _

_I grin. Predictable as always. _

_A quick chakra-powered flip kicks me over his head. He whirls to face me, and I yank the string in my hand. The kunai and shuriken leap out of the tree behind him and towards his back – a little trick I had created in Chiyo-baa-sama's memory. _

_Sasuke hears the knives whirring through the air and turns slightly. _

_With this distraction, I power chakra into my fist and with a yell, swing it towards his face. He disappears again, leaving me to face the kunai and shuriken on wires. With practiced ease, I swing my arm down in an arc and the string drags the knives down into the branch at my feet._

_I glance up in time to see Sasuke crouched beneath a higher branch, shuriken slotted between fingers, ready to defend me should I fail to deflect my own weapons. With this, I know that this fight is recognized – not as one of anger and revenge – but as one of a test of skill. I smile as he disappears in a ragged blur. _

_I drop the wires and close my eyes – listening and feeling. I'm waiting for the air displacement caused by his movements. _

_The air on my right shifts. _

_With lightning-fast reflexes, I strike out with my fist –and touch something! My eyes fly open._

_I must have grazed his hair because he's crouched underneath my outstretched arm. He smirks at my surprise. _

_We lock eyes for a moment, and I notice that he's activated his Sharingan. At least he's taking me seriously. _

_He moves. _

_I try to dodge, but he's too fast._

_I find myself falling forward because he's kicked my legs out from under me. I push my hands out and use my downward momentum to roll to the side. I try to reorient myself and plan a counterattack, but suddenly I'm tackled against a tree trunk. _

_I bite back the pain as the back of my head slams into the wood. Sasuke's hand is at my throat. I whip my hand up, hastily focusing the chakra – but then ONE_– TWO! – _both my hands are clasped above my head in one of his. I strain against his hand at my wrists and shoot him a glare to warn him away from anything weird. _

_His self-satisfied smirk infuriates me. I weigh my options. I could kick the tree branch out from under us, but that wouldn't do me much good. Sasuke would just jump away and attack me while I'm helpless midair. _

_At the slightest hint of movement, I snap back to the present. He reaches for his waist. _

_My eyes widen and I feel my body grow limp with fear as he unsheathes his chokuto. The metal rings as it clears the sheath, and it shines in a slow arc before he brings it forward. The blade's tip rests on my side. _

_My eyes dart between him and the blade. Would he? No, he wouldn't… He wouldn't… But I had once thought that he wouldn't leave… Wouldn't attack Naruto… Wouldn't attack me… Wouldn't come back…_

_The tip of the blade slices through the clothing on my left side, and I feel the cold metal resting on my skin. A prick of pain. It nicked my skin – between the fifth and sixth ribs. I shy away, but the blade follows, expertly handled. _

_Desperate, I fold my hands above my head into the _Tora_ handseal. Tiger. "Kai!"_

_When I open my eyes, he's still there. He laughs – a cold, cold sound. Somehow, the sound serves not to scare me, but to sadden. He murmurs, amused, "So you think this is genjutsu?" _

_He is suddenly closer. He leans over my left shoulder, and his breath tickles my ear. _

_My blood freezes at his frigid, mocking words. "Shall we see how much you've grown, Sakura?" he murmurs. "Shall we see how much pain you can endure before you're reduced to the pitiful, useless wreck you used to be?"_

_He would. _

_The blade pierces my side. I can barely bite back my scream. _

_The pain breaks into me in red, ragged waves. I take a wounded, halting breath. Pain. Another breath. Pain. I estimate two inches of penetration. I feel the blood trickle down my side. The blade is still in there. The foreign object stays solid in my quivering body. Cold. Malicious. _

_I steal a shuddering breath and try to blink. _Concentrate!_ I order myself. _

_He is saying something into my ear, but I do not focus on him. I know all I need to know. This is the chance that I have been waiting for._

_Beyond my bound wrists, my hands mechanically perform the sequence of seals. Hours of practice help me not to falter under the pain. _

_IToraInuSaruHitsujiInuMiToriToraISaruMiUshiNeUma… I gather the focused chakra. The last one – Tora! _

"_Teleportation, Genjutsu no Kai," I whisper and release my finely woven net of chakra. _

_I disappear. And then reappear._

_I blink in the heavy sunshine. The pain is gone. The sun warms my back, and I feel a smile twitching at the corners of my mouth. It worked..._

_It worke–!_

_A sudden shriek of wind and a sharp, black odor batter me aside. I stumble back – and notice that my hands are torn-looking – the colors don't quite match up the way they should. My legs and midsection are the same. My whole body is fuzzy and undefined._

_Another approaching, screeching wind. I look up. A great, metal beast charges towards me – then passes me by. Again the ragged grinding of metal and awful, deathly stench._

_I step farther back. Grass meets my foot and I glance down. A stark strip of grass grows along the hardened, black river I had been standing on. Heat radiates off the black, and I take refuge in the familiar grass. I take a breath and relax a bit. I'm glad that this world has air to breathe. I had no idea where my jutsu would take me. All I theorized and based the chakra concentration on was to travel to another world where I could temporarily escape from "inescapable" genjutsu. It had all been theories – but now! _

_I grin._

_I've done it. My jutsu works! Somewhat… But maybe one of the handseals needs tweaking because I shouldn't have ended up all blurry like this. _

_Putting my hands together, I run through the return seals. It's easy to remember because they are in the exact opposite order of the ones before. Except Tora is always at the end – to provide release. _

_UmaNeUshiMiSaruIToraToriMiInuHitsujiSaruInuToraITora. _

"_Teleportation Jutsu no Kai!" I call out, and pray that it works. I haven't tested the return trip either. _

_For a moment, nothing happens. _

_Then another moment. My heart grows heavy with dread. _

"_Kami-sama. What have I–"_

_The world disappears again. I open my eyes and see green. Leaves flutter down from the forest canopy and the Konoha sun shines dappled light through the trees. It's warm where I'm lying, and I feel very comfortable._

_I smile. I'm back! _

"_Sakura?" A flash of black hair and pale skin jumps into view. _

_In surprise, I throw a chakra-laden punch forward. _

_Only Sasuke's quick reflexes allow him to keep his head attached to his shoulders. _

_I sit up. I find him behind me, cross-legged. His lap… Was I lying in his lap?! I rub the back of my head, as if trying to fix the feeling of him into my mind. I smile, appropriately embarrassed. _

_He eyes me. "Sakura."_

_I don't want anyone to find out about my new jutsu. I had started it in hopes of using it to help defeat Itachi… but when Sasuke-kun came back…_

_I decide to play dumb. "Ne? Sasuke-kun? What happened?"_

_His eyes narrowed slightly. "I'm not sure."_

_I frown, pretending to be perplexed. I glance down at my side and feel for the sword wound that I know is not there. "Was that a genjutsu you used?"_

"_Yes," he replies, as stoically as ever._

_I tip my head to the side. "Did I escape?"_

_He is silent for a moment, studying me. Trying to decide whether to be difficult or not. "No. Your body became hazy. I don't know what jutsu you tried, but it immobilized you. You were helpless."_

_I bite back a curse. This was what I had feared. My body had split between the two worlds, but my consciousness had gone to the new one. _

_So success wasn't as easy as theorizing. _

_Sasuke's voice breaks me from my thoughts. "Sakura, what did you do?"_

_I smile up at him. "Nothing to be worried about Sasuke-kun. You'll find out soon enough."_

"_Hn." He glances away, but not before I see the worry flit through his eyes. _

_I want to tell him. For a moment, I'm tempted to, but then I swallow my doubts and rise to continue our sparring session. _

_I had planned everything out. I provoked him into a battle because I knew that he would use genjutsu on me that could not be broken by ordinary means, and that's exactly the sort of thing that my jutsu was designed for. It would be the perfect opportunity to test my jutsu. _

_But I can't tell him about it. For one, he might go easy on me when we fight. Or he might learn of my initial motive for making this jutsu and be angered. But most of all, I couldn't risk anyone knowing about this because if word ever got back to Tsunade-shishou, I would be banned from developing the jutsu any further. _

_Which is ridiculous… Today proved that my theories were correct, my chakra formation was nearly flawless, and I had everything under control. The other world was _different_ but not too hostile. Besides, I am a genjutsu-type chakra user, and I still haven't learned any genjutsu. It was frustrating. So I decided to make my own dispel for genjutsu. That way if another Itachi ever came along – Konoha would be ready. _

_Sasuke is already gone through the trees. I apply a quick burst of chakra to my feet and dash after him._

--

_The spar ends in a draw. In total, I demolished about half an acre of forest, and Sasuke finished off the other half with chidori strikes and fire jutsus. The sun is just beginning its slow descent when he runs out of chakra. Not that he has less capacity than me. I just tend to use mine more efficiently. _

_We end, his chokuto blade hovering inches from my neck and my chakra-laden fist stopped inches from his nose. _

_I back off first – proof of my trust in him. _

_He drops his sword point down and turns away. I watch him walk towards the shelter of the spared trees in the distance. He nurses his dislocated shoulder. I had caught him by surprise with a hard right hook. _

_I run after him. _

_Moments before I reach him, I stumble on a rock. The ground rushes to meet my face, but he disappears in a black blur and catches me._

_His strong arm pulls me upright. Before I can thank him, he sweeps me up in his arms, and a moment later, we appear in front of the shaded trees. I look up at Sasuke, puzzled. Maybe he wasn't out of chakra after all…_

_I help him sit down, and, with the rest of my chakra, pop his shoulder back in and heal him. He looks up at me, and I cannot read the look in his eyes. _

_We rest for a little bit more, and then begin our walk home. Our walk back to Konoha is silent. But the silence is light – not heavy and grim like when he first returned. _

_We supposedly part ways at the bridge where we began. The Uchiha's housing complex is towards my house, but he turns the other way. I know that he hasn't been living in his old house. Too many bad memories, I suppose. Or too many confusing ones. _

_I sigh and turn away, deciding that I will never fully understand Uchiha Sasuke. _

_The roads are empty when I reach home, and I feel his presence leave me. I smile. I know that he has been tailing me, just in case I'd been hiding wounds._

_Once in my apartment, I head straight for my closet. I kneel at the bottom shelf in the back._

_I reach forward and pull out a small, wooden chest. A series of handseals, and the lock snaps open. I remember my mother teaching me the combination long ago when I was little. This was one of the few things that I saved when the bodies came back from Amegakure. According to the mission report that I had snuck from Tsunade-shishou's file cabinet – and had later been found out by the Godaime and consoled – Father had sacrificed himself to protect Mother. But in the end it hadn't mattered. The Rain ninja had taken the retreating party anyways._

_Holding back the pain flaring to the surface of my heart, I lift back the chest's wooden lid. I take out three scrolls and untie the green and pink ribbons. _

_I reach onto my desk for a brush and ink and set to work. Modifications are in order._

--

Sakura blinked. The light was bright, and it made her head throb.

Still groggy, she sat up and reached for her nightstand. What kind of dream had that been? Sasuke had been there… And they had been fighting and then…. then…

Sakura groped for her alarm clock. Finding the table empty, she glanced over. Something was off. The wood pattern in the tabletop was wrong. The wood-whorls and dark stain...

She bolted up in bed. The sheets were too white. They weren't the sheets of a foster home. Carrie and Sarah?

Sakura's eyes darted about the room. No one. Soothing, green walls. White, fabric curtain divider. A hospital?

She glanced to the side. And then glanced back. A window? She looked up.

Never in a million years could she have prepared herself for the view that greeted her. The scenery – the mountain with the carven faces – bending protectively over the small town. The large, squatting building with the red top – the kanji for fire emblazoned in a white circle.

Her stomach jumped and suddenly became heavy. Her heart pounded against her spine and through her blood. She clenched her eyes closed. No… No-no-no-no-no!

This wasn't real! Couldn't be…

Could it?

Sakura peeked open one eye. The bright sunshine greeted her. The view out the window wasn't a dream. Neither was the hospital room. She could feel the sun's warmth – feel the sheets crinkle under her fingers. It was all real.

That could only mean that this was…

"Konoha?" Sakura whispered. Horror or wonderment – she couldn't tell which – laced through her trembling voice.

--

Nice cliffhanger, no? ;D

Just remember! If you shoot me, you'll NEVER learn how it ends. MUHAHHAA!! xD hahaha... I love you guys too. ;P

Gah... The middle part is always the hardest to write. The rising action right before the climax... Man... How I hate it! And Sasuke seems pretty OOC to me... Is it just me? I hope to God that it's just me... Writer's Paranoia replaces Writer's Block as writing's most debilitating disease...

Haha...

This chapter might not be as tightly woven as I wanted it to be because I'm losing my focus. Hahaha...

Everyone got what Sakura's jutsu is all about right? Teleport to another world, escape Itachi-like genjutsu, teleport back, kill enemy...

Yes, well... I hope you all understand now. Haha, ok, well g'bye until whenever I can dredge out another chapter out of this melted brain of mine. Look forward to Sakura's reunion with Naruto, Kakashi, and Tsunade. I'm considering throwing Ino, Lee, and Hinata in. (Ino because Sakura was her frienemy, Lee because he LOOOOVES Sakura ;P, and Hinata because I want to develop that NaruHina relationship that I'm infamous for loving. Haha)

--K


	7. The Hospital

Konbanwa...

Sorry but I had band and lots of it. Hahaha, yes I am a geek. It matches the anime and fanfic obsession nicely. :D

Dedicated to my very good friend, Alison, for her 16th birthday... Last year. xD hahahahha

I don't own things that cost as much as characters.

--K

&

"Mendokusei, na…" Shikamaru shuffled down the hallway to the Hokage's office. This meeting _was_ troublesome – in every sense of the word.

Nara Shikamaru had just been released after a long mission in Amegakure with his new genin team. It had supposedly been a mere surveillance mission, but a gang of rogue ninja had gotten involved and…

Shikamaru sighed just thinking about it. It had been a tense struggle, but his genin had proven themselves to be stronger than he could ever have predicted.

He allowed himself a small smile. Even though he was tired and this new meeting with the Hokage was troublesome, things were looking up.

"_**WHAAAT?!**__"_ Something crashed. The ground shook. Hasty steps pelted across the floor.

Instantly alert, Shikamaru clung to the shadow of the wall. The noise was coming from Tsunade's office, and if his estimation was right, two people were running down the hallway at full speed – towards him.

Shikamaru readied his hands in the familiar Kage Mane no Jutsu handseals. He quickly calculated in his mind. He could use the shadow of the wall to lengthen his reach, snag the first one, and use the person to bring down the second. But what if the second one was pursuing the first instead of –

An orange streak swept by him. A quick, black blur darted after. Shikamaru blinked.

Tension gone, he sighed and dropped his hands back into his pockets. He continued on to the Hokage's office. "Naruto and Sasuke. Those idiots," he grumbled before rapping lightly on Tsunade's door to announce himself.

"Yes?"

Shikamaru pushed open the door. He was glad to find the office in perfect order – besides a very pale Shizune and a very irritated Tsunade. The Godaime was rubbing her temples and muttering something that suspiciously sounded like "…need sake…"

"Yes, Hokage-sama. You requested to see me?" Shikamaru approached the desk. Tsunade looked up.

"Ah, Shikamaru. Perfect timing," she said. For once in the many years that Shikamaru had known her, Tsunade looked old and worn out. "You're the only one that I can trust with something like this."

"What is it?" Shikamaru frowned.

Tsunade heaved a great sigh. She looked down for a few moments, deep in thought.

_Whatever this is about must be troubling her a lot_, thought Shikamaru. _I've never seen her like this before._

Finally Tsuande looked up. Her eyes sparked with a fierce determination.

"Sakura is back."

Shikamaru froze. For a moment, he couldn't believe it… Then– "_Haruno Sakura?!_ She disappeared years ago! Where did she–"

"She doesn't remember anything."

"Oh…" Shikamaru's excitement quickly faded.

Tsunade looked away. "She was still sleeping when I visited her, and I was able to perform a quick medical jutsu that allowed me to view that state of her mind. But currently, there is no sign that she remembers anything of her previous life here in Konoha."

"Shikamaru-kun," Shizune stepped forward. "Tsunade-sama and I both believe that Sakura's mind still retains these memories, but for reasons unexplainable to us, they are locked away from her consciousness."

Tsunade nodded. "Shikamaru, this is where you come in." She held up a slim folder. Shikamaru stepped forward to take it and immediately opened it.

His eyes widened. "This is…!"

"Yes. That is all the information that we have regarding Sakura's disappearance, and all of Sasuke's most current mission reports regarding his retrieval of her." Tsunade leaned forward in her chair. "Shikamaru."

The jonin looked up from the folder. He caught the seriousness in Tsunade's eyes.

Tsunade continued in the utmost solemnity. "I am going to put you in charge of a research team to study Sakura's jutsu. And find out if there is any way for her to revive her lost memories."

Shikamaru snapped to attention, stowing the folder under one arm. "Hai, Tsunade-sama."

Tsunade offered another piece of paper to Shikamaru. He took it and read the heading.

"B-rank Extermination Mission, Team: Hattake Kakashi leading Uzumaki Naruto, Uchiha Sasuke, and Haruno Sakura–

"You're sending her on a mission?" Shikamaru glanced up from the paper. "A _B-rank_? Isn't that a little dangerous?"

For the first time since Shikamaru entered the office, he saw a glimmer of the usual Tsunade.

The Godaime smirked. "Dangerous?" She weaved her fingers together and rested them under her chin. "Oh, I'm counting on it."

--

Sakura cracked open the closet door ever so slightly.

"_Oh crap_!" she hissed and ducked back into the dark space.

Two nurses walked past Sakura's hiding place, chatting happily and completely unaware of their escaping patient. As the noise faded, Sakura let out a sigh of relief.

She was running away from this weird place. Not only had that scary lady with the huge boobs come in and prodded her head with her glowing green hands and made everything dizzy and fuzzy – but several of the nurses were certainly brain-damaged. At least three different ones and one repeat had confused her with someone named, "Sempai" before the scary big-boobs had chased them all away. How dumb could they be? Sakura had _pink hair_! How could they confuse her with someone else?!

And that jerk Sasuke! Where was he? He had totally deserted her–

"Excuse me… Do you need help?"

Sakura bit back a scream as surprise prickled up her spine. But the voice sounded friendly enough. Very quiet and meek. Maybe a potential ally?

Sakura glanced up into the semi-open doorway. And nearly screamed again.

"W-what…the hell…" she managed to stutter out. This girl had no pupils! Her entire eye was freaking WHITE!

The monster-girl sucked in a sharp breath – as if shocked. "S-sakura-san?!"

Trying to inch away deeper into her hide-away closet, Sakura stole a moment to quickly study the girl. Long, dark hair, lavender jacket, pupil-less eyes. Sakura tried to smile and be polite, but it backfired and emerged a grimace. "Sorry. Do I know you?"

The girl blinked. Utterly shocked. "S…Sakura-san… It's me, Hinata."

_Byakugan. Hyuuga. Shy. _

Blinking back her confusion, Sakura groaned and put a hand to her head. "Hina–?"

"SAKURA-CHAN!"

A loud voice boomed down the hallway. Footsteps thundered closer with every second, accompanied by high-pitched shrieks from nurses and varied shouts from several patients. The footsteps suddenly halted, and the voice – Male, Sakura noted – hollered again. "Ne, ne, nurse onee-san! Sakura-chan! Where's her room?"

The girl – Hinata – froze, and she turned quickly in the doorway, eyes wide. "Narut–?"

Mercifully, Sakura chose to save the new girl from the approaching menace. Besides, she couldn't have a witness pointing this unknown and oddly annoying threat to her hiding spot. In one fluid motion, Sakura leapt forward, clapped a hand over the girl's mouth, and pulled her into the darkness of the closet.

Down the hall, the nurse managed to stutter out an answer and half a warning that Hokage-sama forbid the entry of any non-authorized personnel – but the footsteps drowned out the rest of her sentence.

The nurse recovered remarkably. "W-wait a moment! Hokage-sama strictly–!" A different, quiet voice cut her off. Sakura couldn't hear who it was or what they were saying because the annoying mystery guy was yelling her name again.

"Sakura-chan!"

How the hell did all these people know her name? Even this weird girl named Hyuuga Hinata… Wait… _How did I know _that_ was her last name?_

The girl was struggling slightly, a bit more confused than alarmed. Sakura didn't want to make any noise trying to subdue her, so she made sure that the girl saw her put a shushing finger to her lips before removing her hand from the girl's mouth.

The gir– Hinata immediately understood and nodded. Still blinking in confusion, she crept next to Sakura who had turned to peek through the open crack in the closet's door.

The Annoyance was getting louder, almost deafeningly, and the footsteps seemed very close.

An orange blur swept past the door. Sakura followed it with her eyes and saw it barge into her former hospital room with a very loud, "SAKURA-CHA–_ara_? Where'd she go?"

A spattering of footsteps quickly followed after the orange blur. "Naruto-san! Please! This is a hospital! We require silence! And patient Haruno Sakura is resting!"

Several nurses passed by the closet, in hot pursuit.

"Anou… Sakura-san…?" Hinata whispered and plucked at Sakura's sleeve. Sakura quickly shushed her with a wave of her hand.

The nurses all crowded through the door to Sakura's recently vacated room. Sakura held her breath. If they figured out she was missing now, she wouldn't be able to escape at all! Dumb orange person! Who did that guy think he was?

After the nurses entered the room, a moment of stunned silence passed. Then a crescendo of cries echoed out and into the hallway. "Eeeeh! Where's she go!"

"I don't know!"

"You were the last one to check–"

"Go notify Hokage-sama immediately!"

Hinata tapped Sakura on the shoulder this time. "Anou… Sakura-san!"

"Be quiet!" Sakura hissed. The orange guy had dashed out of the room again and was hastily checking all the rooms in the hallway in the noisiest way possible. Sakura watched as the orange blur stopped, yanked open a door – obscuring his face, bellowed "Sakura-chan! Where are you!", and got chased out by a female's piercing scream.

Apparently someone had been getting a sponge bath.

Sakura could make out his approximate features. Blonde hair, orange jumpsuit with pants that ended too short before his ankles, and a very, very loud, annoying voice.

The guy chose his next door, and Sakura realized, he was making his way down the hall – directly towards her hiding spot! Three doors away now. She had no where to run.

"Sakura-san!" Hinata whispered urgently and risked shaking Sakura's shoulder.

"Not now, Hinata! That guy's going to find us!"

Another scream denoted that another room had been hastily searched.

"But Sakura-san!"

"Hinata!" Sakura hissed furiously and turned. "What!"

Hinata's eyes were wide. She pointed up.

Another person screamed. Only one door left before they were found!

Sakura quickly glanced up, saw black, and turned back to the door. Then she allowed her mind to reanalyze the shadows. In her mind's eye, Sakura easily spotted a pair of black pants, midnight blue covering a mesh undershirt, and the grey sheen of a metal hittai-ate nestled between shocks of black hair.

She slowly turned back, wishing insanity instead of what she suspected was another person standing silently in the back of the closet.

Now that she was looking for him, Sakura saw him instantly. Horrified, Sakura found herself frozen in terror. Had he been there the entire time?!

He spoke. "That's not very nice. Disappearing and scaring them all over again."

Terror unfroze her veins and a small shriek escaped Sakura's lips.

"Ara? What was that?" Someone spoke from outside the door. Orange blocked the door's small opening.

It all seemed to happen at once.

Sakura freaked out and tried to yank Hinata away from the dark menace brooding in the corner. Hinata yelped as she crashed into Sakura and sent both girls tumbling into the door. Which wouldn't have been much of a problem, except there was nothing to stop their fall seeing as a loud, orange-clad shinobi had just swept open the closet door.

Sakura suddenly found herself sprawled face-down on the hospital floor, trapped under a very distressed Hinata. Pink hair splayed under Hinata's jacket, Sakura lay still, stunned momentarily.

Then she heard the loud voice from earlier proclaim, "Hinata? Hinata-chan, what are you doing in the closet?"

Hinata froze and stopped trying to get up – much to Sakura's annoyance. "N-naruto-kun! It _was_ you!"

"Of course it's me! But what– Oi! Sasuke-teme! What're you trying to pull? Why were in the closet with Hinata-chan!"

"Mmph!" managed Sakura. She tried waving at Hinata to get her attention. Hinata quickly realized that she still had Sakura pinned to the ground, kissing the floor.

"Ah! Gomen! I didn't know – I mean I forgot – but Naruto-kun was–"

Sakura sat up and immediately turned to the closet. She spotted Sasuke smirking in the doorway. "Y-you!" Sakura yelled. "It was you! I knew it! What the hell, Sasuke!"

Sasuke didn't answer, he just continued smirking. He nudged his head forward – _Look over there._

Sakura glanced up. Hinata was standing behind a tall figure that Sakura couldn't quite make out. A lightbulb glared behind his head, darkening his face in shadow.

"Sakura…chan…" It came out a whisper, but Sakura could immediately tell that it was the same guy as before.

She put a hand up to filter out the light, and his face came into focus. Her hand started shaking, and her mouth spoke before her brain could catch up.

"Naruto?"

&

Sorry, I promised Ino and Lee in this one, but I only got in Hinata. Haha, and not as much NaruHina as I would have liked...

But you can catch the subtle stuff. ;D

Next one Tsunade meets the conscious Sakura, and you learn about her mission... Besides looks like Sakura's jutsu has complications...

--K


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